1.6 - Early South Asian Immigration
OverviewObjectivesEssayVocabularyDiscussion QuestionsActivity 1 Further Information StandardsCredits
Grade: 8-12Subject: English Language Arts, U.S. History
Number of Activities: 1
Overview:
This lesson is an exploration of how South Asian Muslims immigrated and built lives in the U.S. during the time of Chinese and Asian exclusion. Although initially classified as “white,” orientalist discourse cast South Asians as “others” who found welcome in African American communities.
 
Learning Objectives:
Students will:
 
Topic/Background Essay:
In the 1880s, the United States began to intentionally and legally close their borders to non-Anglo immigrants through laws like the Chinese Exclusion Act, which barred Chinese laborers from immigrating to the United States. At that same time, there was a group of South Asian men who found a way to migrate and thrive in the United States, coming into ports on the East Coast. Some were laborers on British ships, who would then jump ship at U.S. ports. Others were Muslim peddlers from the Bengali region of South Asia who sold “exotic” products popular in the U.S. at that time. One of the earliest of those migrations consisted of Muslim men from the region of Hooghly, in the Indian state of Bengal, who were silk traders. And one of those men was named Moksad Ali.
Moksad Ali was one of the earliest to settle in New Orleans at a time when it was deeply segregated. The 1896 Supreme Court ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson upheld racial segregation through a “separate but equal” doctrine, which ultimately shaped the experiences of South Asians like Moksad Ali. Although they were sometimes classified as “white” on government forms and often allowed to travel in white sections of public transportation, their national origin and darker skin ensured that South Asian men lived in segregated neighborhoods in both Jim Crow South and a de facto segregated North.
Not only did Bengali peddlers live in African American neighborhoods, they also married into the African American community, and through their wives and extended families most likely gained access to local social and economic networks integral to a global network that spanned two empires, the U.S. and Great Britain. Their children also became well established in African American communities and other communities of color.
Several of these neighborhoods became the only communities in the United States who took in South Asian Muslim seamen and peddlers; therefore, granting them the opportunity to try to establish a new home base while their original homes were being colonized.
 
Vocabulary
 
Discussion Questions:
 
Activity 1: Document-Based Inquiry (Historical Narrative)
Have students locate and research sources regarding segregation and interracial marriage from 1890 through the 1960s. Students may focus on those assimilating to communities in the South, such as New Orleans and other notable locations in Charleston, Savannah and Jacksonville; or expand to research those that settled in the North, such as Harlem and Detroit. Have students explore the topic of South Asian (Indian, Bengali) Muslim peddlers and seamen and interracial marriage through newspaper articles and images, memoirs, and interviews, utilizing a variety of sources. Ideally, they will find 2 - 4 primary resources to use for the next step.
Divide students into small groups and have them share sources, organizing them in chronological order by creating a two-column chart with the right side dedicated to the title of the source and the year(s) they spanned and the left side dedicated toward an analysis of the sources. Have students discuss a variation of the questions below:
 
Further Information:
South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA)
“Preserving the Legacy of Bengali Harlem," Teresa Mathew, Citylab